HONORED: CCRI baseball coach Ken Hopkins was recently named the Eastern District Coach of the Year.

The CCRI Knights baseball team keeps getting good news this week. They won the Eastern District Championship in dramatic comeback fashion to earn a berth in the 2012 NJCAA Division II Baseball World Series in Enid, OK May 26th- June 2nd, and now, due to their success, the Knights have climbed two more spots in the national poll to No. 8. Last week they had jumped to No. 10.

In addition to moving up in the national rankings, they also received more good news with head coach Ken Hopkins earning Eastern District Coach of the Year. Hopkins has led the Knights to a 33-11 record so far this season and has won the Region XXI and Eastern District Titles in the process. There have only been two CCRI baseball teams to amass a better record than that of the 2012 Knights: In 1988 they had 36 wins and in 1996 they had 35 victories. With the NJCAA World Series approaching, Hopkins has a chance to lead the Knights to the best win total in program history.

While the Knights are currently waiting to find out who their opponent will be at the World Series, they do know it will be a team from Region IV, which is also the North Central District. Two of the top teams in that District are No. 5 Madison College from Madison, Wis. and No. 10 Blackhawk College-Moline from Moline, Ill. Their tournament to decide a winner will be this weekend.

The East District vs. North Central District game at the NJCAA World Series will be played Saturday, May 26th at 1 p.m.

Knights score program-best 21 points day two of Tennis Nationals

The CCRI Tennis team traveled to Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas to compete in the Division III Tennis National Tournament. On the second day of the tournament, CCRI scored 21 team points, which is a CCRI tennis program record for points in a single day at the D-III Tennis National Tournament. At the seeding meeting for the tournament, CCRI was involved in the seeding discussions for six of the nine flights, ultimately garnering five seeds. Michael Fallone (North Providence) was seeded as the No. 2 seed in first flight singles. Anthony Lamborghini (Smithfield) was awarded the No. 3 seed for second flight singles. Ross Bouchard (South Kingstown) was awarded the No. 2 seed in fourth flight singles. Fallone and Lamborghini were awarded the No. 3 seed for first flight doubles. Nicholas Morin (North Smithfield) and Nicholas Elkind-DeAngelis (Northborough, Mass.) were awarded the No. 2 seed in third flight doubles.

While the Knights’ players had byes on day one of the tournament, day two of the 2012 National Championship for Division III NJCAA tennis saw the Knights accumulate their highest single-day point total, and highest overall tournament point-total in history. With 21 points at the close of day two, CCRI is positioned in third place. With all nine positions in action, CCRI managed to win seven of the nine matches.

The first match of the day to take to the courts was Fallone against Zach Arpey of SUNY-Adirondack. Fallone jumped out to an early lead and cruised through the match, finishing with a score of 6-2 and 6-2. Fallone will next take on Montgomery Rockville’s Dykhyun (Alex) Park in the semifinals.

Lamborghini took to the courts facing a scrappy Adam Cadwell from Onondaga CC. Cadwell, who had played most of the season at No. 1 singles for the Lazers, started well, but Lamborghini prevailed 7-6(7-3) and 6-4. Lamborghini will next face the No. 1 seed in second flight singles, Matt Kallenberg from Nassau Community College, yet another player that spent most of the year at the No. 1 position, in the semifinals.

Elkind-DeAngelis also took to the courts facing Evan Desantis from SUNY-Adirondack. Desantis prevailed 7-6(7-3) and 6-1. DeAngelis will now enter the tournament back draw, and is scheduled to face Marc Seduca of Kingsborough Community College. Seduca, however, was forced to retire from Wednesday’s main draw match as he rolled an ankle during the course of play.

Bouchard took to the courts as the second seed, facing off against Andy Parlow from Onondaga CC. Bouchard defeated Parlow 6-0 and 6-2 to advance to the semifinals. Bouchard will next face Jeff Castera from Mercer County Community College.

In fifth flight singles, Timothy Holzinger (Foster) took to the courts to take on Shawn Sullivan from Onondaga CC. Holzinger had defeated Sullivan twice in the season, but the Lazer reversed his fortunes, prevailing over the CCRI No. 5 by a score of 6-4, 4-6 and 6-2. Holzinger will enter the back draw, consolation bracket, with an eye on winning that. He will next face Michael Lem from Oxford College.

In sixth flight singles, in what was the match of the tournament so far, Morin took to the courts facing off against No. 1 seed Shamell Martin from Gloucester County College. Morin, unfazed by the prior success of the Roadrunner’s No. 6, jumped out to an early break and prevailed in the first set 6-2. Then after a slight stumble, the second set went to the top seed 6-1. In the third and final set Morin and Martin fought back-and-forth, until the set culminated in a tie-breaker. Morin dropped the first couple of points, but then won seven of the next eight to prevail 7-3, upsetting the top seed. Morin will next face Luis Morales of Mercer County Community College in the semifinals.

In first flight doubles, Fallone and Lamborghini took to the courts facing Nolan Bilder and Ambrose Tingan from Brookdale CC. Fallone and Lamborghini cruised through the first set 6-1, then stumbled in the second, dropping it 7-5, before getting back on track and closing out the match 6-2 in the third. Fallone and Lamborghini will next face the No. 1 seed in first flight doubles, the team of Judd Bahoui and Pasha Shapouri from Nassau Community College in the semifinals.

In second flight doubles Bouchard and Holzinger faced off against Yevgeniy Remennick and an injury substitute from Kingsborough Community College. Bouchard and Holzinger handled the NYC pair, 6-4 and 6-0 to advance to the semifinals. They will next face the No. 2 seeds at second doubles, Vladislav Koldomasov and Andrew Pfeiffer from Gloucester County College.

The last CCRI team of the day was the third flight doubles team of Morin and DeAngelis. As the No. 2 seed, they faced Andy Parlow and Justin Parow of Onondaga Community College. After the grueling sixth singles match, Morin went in to the match knowing he would need some help from his partner. Morin, however, played like the fresher of the two for most of the match. The pair prevailed in the Knights’ fourth 3-setter of the day, 2-6, 6-3 and 6-4.

CCRI ended the day in third place overall, with its 21 points trailing only Nassau CC’s 23 and Gloucester CC’s 21.5.

Fallone named D-III Tennis Player of Year

The CCRI men’s tennis team is at the Division III Nationals hosted by Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas. At the Saturday pre-tournament meeting, the coaches discuss seeding for the tournament and also the Division I and Division III players of the year are named. This year, CCRI No.1 singles and doubles standout Mike Fallone (North Providence) was named D-III player of the year. This is the second time in three years that CCRI has had the D-III player of the year. The last time it happened was in 2010 with Alex Cavanagh.